Senators seek to block transport of chemical weapons

By Rob Jordan
Star Staff Writer
01-27-2005

Alabama's U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby said Wednesday that he will co-sponsor a bill to prevent the Pentagon from studying interstate transportation of chemical weapons to destruction sites such as Anniston's incinerator. Sen. Jeff Sessions said he will consider supporting the bill. U.S. Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar of Colorado announced Wednesday that they will introduce the bill to ban any such study, saying Pentagon officials had misled them about plans to move weapons. The Army announced last week that it would study the possibility of relocating chemical weapons from certain stockpiles as a cost-cutting measure. The announcement immediately stirred local criticism. Pentagon officials promised, when the incinerator at Anniston Army Depot was being planned and built, that it would be used only to destroy the stockpile of weapons there, and that no weapons or chemicals stored elsewhere would be shipped in for destruction. The proposed legislation, however, may be too late to stop the study, which already is under way. The study's findings are set to go to the Pentagon on Feb. 18, according to Greg Mahall, a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, the entity responsible for overseeing chemical weapons disposal. Shelby said in a written statement that he will fight any effort to transport chemical weapons to Anniston. He said Pentagon officials had assured him in the past that Anniston's incinerator would be used to destroy only weapons in the stockpile at Anniston Army Depot. "I am hopeful that the Department of Defense will keep its word," Shelby said. Sessions said he opposes adding to the "large burden" at Anniston's incinerator. "As I recall, the Department of Defense told me a number of years ago that additional chemical weapons or chemical weapons materials would not be brought into Anniston, and I expect the department to adhere to that," Sessions said in a written statement. Federal law banned such a study until 1998 and still prohibits such transportation. Amending the law would require a presidential order or act of Congress. Salazar and Allard have said that Pentagon officials last week assured them weapons would not be moved from the Colorado stockpile. However, an official with the agency overseeing the destruction program in Colorado and Kentucky said he had received orders to halt work at the Colorado site while the Army studies transportation options. The Colorado storage site does not yet have a destruction facility in operation, although plans for one were in progress. The Anniston site, which uses incineration and began destruction operations in August 2003, cost more than $30 million to build. There are eight chemical weapons storage sites around the country. Pentagon officials have been reluctant to comment on the relocation study. Speaking before the Senate on Wednesday, Allard questioned the $150,000 study, citing previous Pentagon studies that found transport of chemical weapons from the Colorado site to be impractical. "With the department wasting money on meaningless studies, it is no wonder that this program is over budget and behind schedule," Allard said. Anniston's incinerator is slated to complete destruction of the deadly nerve and blister agent stockpile there by 2010.

About Rob Jordan

Rob Jordan covers Oxford for The Star.